Offensive T-shirt watch, vol. 5.

[Nope, just our Kenny Chesney post. That pic is as close as we could get to the guy.]

There's little to add to the Kenny Chesney conversation at this point. Either you're the type of country fan who's down with his mercilessly optimistic brand of rum-soaked Jimmy Buffett-core or you're not. Most folks at Stagecoach seem to be okay with that.

The strains of "She Thinks My Tractor's Sexy" are currently wafting through the desert night and I think I might have figured him out. Kenny Chesney is country's version of Diddy. Neither have any discernable charisma beyond good-times opulence and the generic tropes of island revelry: booze, good-looking ladies and a sense of exotica bleached clean of any actual sense of local lifestyle or attachment to the roots of one's given terrain. Which is, obviously, totally contrary to the values of country music. But still ...

For the auteur behind "Beer in Mexico," the actual country to our immediate south is a set piece for his maxin' and relaxin' worldview, as opposed to a place where real people live and work. But it's probably asking too much to expect more, because Chesney is, like Diddy, more of an idea than an actual artist, or even a person at this point. They exist solely to embody the spoils of the successful entertainer's life with none of the trappings of actually maintaining a dangerous public persona. All of that would be too messy, and would interfere with the on-message image of oily pecs, frothy Coronas and a respite from the grind whom so many actual Mexican citizens help make so much easier through selfless labor.

Chesney is all that is wrong with modern Nashville, yet also the archetype of the post-9/11 country music mentality. Namely, that fans want to curl up under a palm tree and sip fruity drinks while the busy, ugly world washes by.

Not so fast, buddy. This genre has some explaining to do first.

Comments

[Jeff]

Kenny Chesney= Country Version of Diddy is perhaps the best line I've read in recent memory. That is just great.

[Sylvia]

How could you have missed my favorite shirt of the weekend???
"Titties and Beer
Thank God I'm Not Queer!"

[Bec]

Bloggers who would like to be taken seriously should stick to blogging about topics they know something about. Everything else just shows your ignorance.